Four students from our fold will be interning with the NHL’s New York Rangers’ training staff over the holiday break and reading week, gaining a behind-the-scenes exposure of the inner-workings of a professional hockey team.

Sara Cusack and Andrew Kulas embark on their internship from Dec. 13 – 20, while Katya Mackling and Shanlyn Parkhill are slated to hit the Empire City during reading week.

Mackling says the chance to work with a pro hockey club is the opportunity of a lifetime.

“I’m so excited,” says Mackling, 20, brimming ear-to-ear. “My plan is to work in hockey in the future, so getting this opportunity is super awesome and I’m looking forward to it.”

The third-year student currently serves as a student AT with the Bisons Men’s Hockey squad. She’s part of a team that provides therapeutic services for the players, such as pre-game stretching and taping, and in-game/post game support, amongst other vital services.

The internship partnership between the Athletic Therapy Department and the Rangers dates back to the early 2000s. The Rangers’ head athletic trainer & director of sports medicine, Jim Ramsay [B.PE/87], is a UofM grad and a former classmate of current FKRM AT director, Jackie Elliott.

(Fun fact: one of the first UofM AT student to be selected for the Rangers internship is current Winnipeg Jets director of athletic therapy, Rob Milette [B.AT/02].)

Elliott says the students will spend their internship shadowing and observing the Rangers’ training staff during games and practices throughout their one-week stints. She expects them to soak it all up and use this as a stepping-stone to further their education and eventual careers.

“It’s really an opportunity of a life time to get to see how a big U.S. professional sports team operates. There will be lots to see and learn,” says Elliott.

University of Manitoba AT students also intern with local pro clubs, such as the Blue Bombers, Goldeyes and Jets, respectively, Elliott adds.

Mackling is a hockey fan and adds she’s been trying to learn as much as she can about the Rangers before her internship begins.

“I’ve started keeping an eye on some Rangers games and been trying to get some names down and get a little more familiar with the team,” she chuckles.

The B.Kin. – AT program is designed for students interested in careers in the expanding field of physical activity, health and wellness. In addition to taking core courses in the exercise sciences, students have the flexibility to take additional courses or practicums that allow them to design an educational experience best suited to their interests. Students may obtain a variety of fitness-related qualifications and certifications that would complement their career aspirations. For more information about applying, visit umanitoba.ca/kinrec.

The BATC is no longer accepting U of M staff, students, or the general public as athletic therapy patients. Massage therapy services will continue to be offered until June 30.

The BATC will continue to remain a teaching and practicum component of the Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management’s bachelor of kinesiology-athletic therapy degree program.

The University of Manitoba and the BATC would like to thank past clients for their business, referrals, and trust.

“It has been a pleasure and a privilege to provide our client-base with athletic and massage therapy care,” says Gene Muller, Director of Recreation and Athletics, University of Manitoba.

“As our athletic programs continue to grow, it’s paramount we have a significant and primary focus on injury rehabilitation and injury prevention of our student-athletes.”

For a listing of reputable athletic therapy options, please visit Manitoba Athletic Therapy Association.

Visit Massage Therapy Association of Manitoba for a listing of Massage Therapy clinics in close proximity to the U of M.

If you have any questions, please see our Q&A below:

WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH THE BISON ATHLETIC THERAPY CLINIC (BATC)?

As of May 1, 2017 the BATC will only be servicing University of Manitoba Bison student-athletes. After April 30, 2017, the BATC will no longer be offering its services to U of M faculty, staff, students, or the general public.

WHEN IS BATC NO LONGER ACCEPTING NON-BISON SPORTS CLIENTS?

May 1, 2017

ARE THERE ANY SERVICES THE BATC IS STILL OFFERING TO NON STUDENT-ATHLETES?

Massage Therapy and Orthotic Casting appointments will continue to be offered to all clients until June 30, 2017.

HAVING AN ATHLETIC THERAPY CLINIC ON CAMPUS WAS CONVENIENT FOR ME. ARE THERE CLINICS CLOSE TO THE U OF M I CAN GO TO?

Yes, please visit the Manitoba Athletic Therapy Association at www.mata.mb.ca or the Massage Therapy Association Manitoba at www.mtam.mb.ca for a list of reputable athletic and massage therapy clinics in close proximity to the U of M.

AS A STUDENT, I BENEFITED FROM BATC’S DIRECT BILLING TO MY UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA STUDENTS’ UNION (UMSU) HEALTH PLAN. WILL MY UMSU HEALTH PLAN ACCEPT DIRECT BILLING FROM OTHER CLINICS?

Direct billing is available at many athletic therapy and massage therapy clinics. Please inquire with the clinic directly when you make your appointment.

It’s a Wednesday in July and the sun has been up just shy of 90 minutes. Inside the U of M’s High Performance Training Centre, a handful of Bison athletes are stretching, methodically turning and twisting their bodies. This is only the warm-up. To the untrained eye, however, it looks like a training session on to itself.

That’s because everyone here is focused on details. Even the tiniest ones. There’s not a wasted movement happening right now. Even in stretching, every motion has a purpose. This focus starts from the top down, a hierarchical trickle effect.

Setting this tone is Bison Sports’ Head Strength and Conditioning Coach, Shawn Preston. He’s here today. He’s here pretty much everyday, actually. Preston’s currently observing the athletes as they go through a brief, powerful series of warm-up calisthenics to, in his words, “get the body moving.” He watches their movements (even in the warm-up) the same way a wise jeweller would analyze the ridges of a rare gem.

“A big reason why we pay so much attention to the technical component of how the athletes move is so that they’re capable of moving in proficient and efficient ways. And with that it’s going to help them decrease their injury rates,” he says.

“When we’re lifting weights here, we want them to lift them correctly so they’re not putting stress on joints and on the body in ways it’s not supposed to be done. We’re trying to make them stronger, not stress their bodies.”

Preston is in this role for a reason. He has more than a decade’s worth of experience in this field, working expertly in long-term athlete development and preparation of elite international athletes. He works directly with the Bison sports teams, and in the past has also been contracted with several national level organizations including the Canadian Sport Institute, Tae Kwon Do, Boxing, and Judo for the Chinese Olympic Committee, Snowboard Canada, Rugby Canada, Alberta Alpine, and the Hockey Canada Development Program.

It isn’t hard to connect the dots with what a place with the words “high performance” in it is trying to accomplish. Of course, increased strength, power, speed, agility, and any other training buzzword you can think of are indeed significant goals here. But injury prevention is what rules the roost.

“If we don’t make that our top goal, we’re kind of missing out on the whole concept of increasing the rate of play that the athlete can take place in,” Preston says.

“Keeping them healthy is an important factor in prepping the athletes for what the coaches need out of them.”

Today is rather humid, even for July in Winnipeg. A handful of Bison athletes are working on strength and explosiveness. Amongst the group is Bison’s hockey forward, and two-time Finnish Olympian, Venla Hovi.

She calls herself fortunate to have the High Performance Training Centre as a resource.

“Everyday when I wake up I think about how lucky I am to work out here. It gives me a lot of motivation knowing that when I come here I get the best coaching and training possible,” she says.

From a strength standpoint, Hovi, who earned a bronze medal in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic games, considers herself to be in the best shape of her life.

“Oh yeah,” she blurts out before the question is even finished. “My results keep going up since I’ve started. I feel very healthy and strong.”

While she prefers not to think too far ahead, Hovi’s confident her body will be in tip-top shape for the grind that is the Canada West hockey season—a season that last year saw the women’s Bison hockey squad make the Canada West finals.

“My goal, really, is to be in the best shape possible for when the real games start.”

Getting the athletes stronger and faster isn’t just about having them lift heavier and run longer. There’s a scientific approach to it all. Spreadsheets and computer read-outs brimming with performance data are poured over and expertly analyzed by Preston and his staff. It’s a way to efficiently evaluate what an athlete needs to work on, and to monitor progress. Doing it this way, Preston says, represents a bit of a culture change.

“What we’re trying to do now is to have athletes and coaches understand that it’s not just the grunt work you do in the weight room, but doing it in a scientific manner and where we monitor and make sure we are tracking and getting better is huge for using new technology we have available to us.”

“If we didn’t have these numbers and stats, then improvement is really a guessing game. The only numbers they would have to go on are their in-game statistics. If they’re a player that’s not playing in year one or year two because they’re younger or not being utilized, then there’s really no real number to go off of to see the progress in those earlier years.”

In the world of athletic maintenance and preparation, strength and conditioning are parts of a complicated equation. Bison athletes have another equally valuable (and crucial) resource available to them: athletic therapy, or AT.

In general, ATs deal with injuries, rehabilitation, and injury prevention so athletes can return to play as quickly and efficiently as possible. Specifically, however, the world of AT is so much more.

The Bison Athletic Therapy Centre (BATC), while physically located on campus in the Investors Group Athletic Centre, also has a presence in the field with Bison sports teams. Between two-to-six AT students are assigned to each team, monitoring and caring for athletes and consulting with coaches before, during, and after games and practices.

The Bison Athletic Therapy Clinic, located right on campus, isn’t just for athletes. Staff and students are more than welcome and encouraged to make appointments for athletic and massage therapy.

This duality, having both an AT clinic and dedicated team of student ATs, is instrumental to the unique and elite care offered to Bison athletes.

“We’re right on the front lines,” says Byron Bahniuk, a senior athletic therapist in the BATC. “We can see the injury occur, we can assess it, we can treat the acute component of it, and then we can bring the athlete into the clinic and do the other half of it.”

The other half of it involves in-clinic evaluation, rehabilitation, and education on preventative measures to avoid re-injury. It also involves a little bit of sport psychology. Bahniuk says it’s all a process.

“Once the athlete is healed, it’s our job to prove to them that they’re good to go. We’ll have them perform sport-specific type of movements needed for their sport, and we show them in a stage format that they can do these activities. Once we’ve shown them they can do it, their confidence starts to grow.”

The BATC offers such services as therapeutic ultrasound, laser therapy, postural education and reconditioning, custom orthotics, functional movement screening, and massage therapy, amongst a whole host of other therapeutic options for everyone … not just athletes.

“Everyone’s an athlete,” Bahniuk states. “Whether you’re what we call an industrial athlete (people who work in warehouses, assembly lines), doing very physical work, they can get injured. You also have the ‘weekend warriors’ that are playing sports. We deal with everyone.”

Before visiting the centre for whiplash after my car accident, I wondered too. After several weeks of treatment, including massage therapy, stretches, strengthening exercises and education about neck and muscle injuries, it became clear to me how athletic therapy helps not only elite athletes but also regular people like me after an injury.

BATC director Tracy Nyczai says that it’s not uncommon for the average person to be unaware of the services provided by the BATC– or even the existence of trained athletic therapists.

While we usually think of sports when we talk about athletic activity, most Canadians engage in some form of physical activity every day, she adds.

Whether it’s lifting an infant into a highchair, running for the bus, or bending to reach a fallen sock behind the dryer, we move and exert our bodies constantly. And sometimes we feel the pain from those movements.

Now that summer has arrived, and with it welcome physical activity, it comes with increased possibility of muscle strain or injury. That’s where athletic therapy can help.

Whether it’s lifting an infant into a highchair, running for the bus, or bending to reach a fallen sock behind the dryer, we move and exert our bodies constantly. And sometimes we feel the pain from those movements.

Athletic therapy is also sometimes confused with physiotherapy.

The major difference between two, says Nyczai, is that athletic therapists specialize in orthopaedics, the branch of medicine that deals with the prevention or correction of injuries or disorders of the skeletal system and associated muscles, joints and ligaments.

They are trained in the area of assessment and treatment of such injuries or conditions and have experience with a wide variety of manual therapy technique for these kinds of injuries.

As the name suggests, athletic therapists often work with athletes in the prevention and treatment of injuries. Their training is augmented with injury prevention, supporting taping and emergency care for on field work with teams. Their formal training also includes exercise physiology to retrain athletes after an injury.

Nyczai says that celebrating National Athletic Therapy Month is a great way for the centre to “create awareness about athletic therapy as a choice for rehabilitation. It helps individuals safely return to work or play after injury or pain.”

The Bison Athletic Therapy Centre services our intercollegiate athletes, as well as the students, faculty and staff at the university, and also welcomes and provides services to the community and general public.

The Bison Athletic Therapy Centre is located on the Fort Garry Campus, 2nd floor of Investors Group Athletic Centre, and services the injury rehabilitation needs of faculty, staff, students, and Bison athletes. Current hours are:

ATHLETIC THERAPY

Monday to Friday 7:30am – 5:00pm

MASSAGE THERAPY

Monday 1:00-5:00pm
Tuesday 1:00-5:00pm
Thursday 1:00-5:00pm
Friday 1:00-5:00pm

Treatments are covered under the University Health Benefits plan and the Bison Athletic Therapy Centre also accepts MPIC and WCB injuries.

Tuesday, April 5  12:00-4:00pm
Tuesday, April 12 9:30 am-12:30pm
Tuesday, April 19 9:30am-12:30pm
Tuesday, April 26 9:30am-12:30pm
Tuesday, May 3 9:30am-12:30pm
Tuesday, May 10 9:30am-12:30pm

Fees: $25/60 min or $12.50/30min

This is not compensable under insurance plans as this is a massage therapy student.

To reserve your appointment, call the Bison Athletic Therapy Centre at 204-474-6956 or email us at atc@umanitoba.ca. Spots are limited so get yours soon!

The Bison Athletic Therapy Centre is located in room 231 in Investors Group Athletic Centre.

The Athletic Therapy Student Council’s massage-a-thon couldn’t be taking place at a better time.

The annual event takes place March 14-18 in the Graduate Students Association (GSA) lounge on the second floor of University Centre.

It’s simple: email or drop-in to schedule a time to meet with a student athletic therapist. The session will involve an assessment and then an athletic therapy massage.

The massage-a-thon also serves as a fundraiser for Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management Athletic Therapy students. Throughout the course of their education, they’re required to pay for such things as certification, CPR training, and whole host of other costs associated with their field of study.

To sign-up, email umatstudentcouncil@umanitoba.ca with your name and preferred date and time. Or, drop by the GSA lounge to book a time with the front desk.

Costs for the massage-a-thon are:

• $10 for 15 minutes
• $15 for 30 minutes
• $20 for 45 minutes
• $25 for an hour

Hours of operation are:

Monday – Tuesday: 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Wednesday: 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Thursday: 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Friday: 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Mandy Los, athletic therapist.

Before visiting the centre for whiplash after my car accident, I wondered too. After several weeks of treatment, including massage therapy, stretches, strengthening exercises and education about neck and muscle injuries, it became clear to me how athletic therapy helps not only elite athletes but also regular people like me after an injury.

BATC director Tracy Nyczai says that it’s not uncommon for the average person to be unaware of the services provided by the BATC– or even the existence of trained athletic therapists.

While we usually think of sports when we talk about athletic activity, most Canadians engage in some form of physical activity every day, she adds.

Whether it’s lifting an infant into a highchair, running for the bus, or bending to reach a fallen sock behind the dryer, we move and exert our bodies constantly. And sometimes we feel the pain from those movements.

Now that summer has arrived, and with it welcome physical activity, it comes with increased possibility of muscle strain or injury. That’s where athletic therapy can help.

Whether it’s lifting an infant into a highchair, running for the bus, or bending to reach a fallen sock behind the dryer, we move and exert our bodies constantly. And sometimes we feel the pain from those movements.

Athletic therapy is also sometimes confused with physiotherapy.

The major difference between two, says Nyczai, is that athletic therapists specialize in orthopaedics, the branch of medicine that deals with the prevention or correction of injuries or disorders of the skeletal system and associated muscles, joints and ligaments.

Byron Bahniuk, athletic therapist.

They are trained in the area of assessment and treatment of such injuries or conditions and have experience with a wide variety of manual therapy technique for these kinds of injuries.

As the name suggests, athletic therapists often work with athletes in the prevention and treatment of injuries. Their training is augmented with injury prevention, supporting taping and emergency care for on field work with teams. Their formal training also includes exercise physiology to retrain athletes after an injury.

Nyczai says that celebrating National Athletic Therapy Month is a great way for the centre to “create awareness about athletic therapy as a choice for rehabilitation. It helps individuals safely return to work or play after injury or pain.”

The Bison Athletic Therapy Centre services our intercollegiate athletes, as well as the students, faculty and staff at the university, and also welcomes and provides services to the community and general public.

The Bison Athletic Therapy Centre is located on the Fort Garry Campus, 2nd floor of Investors Group Athletic Centre, and services the injury rehabilitation needs of faculty, staff, students, and Bison athletes. The centre is open year-round from Monday to Friday from 7:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. Treatments are covered under the University Health Benefits plan and the Bison Athletic Therapy Centre also accepts MPIC and WCB injuries.

The idea behind National Athletic Therapy Month this June: an annual reminder that everyone can benefit from the expertise of Canada’s Certified Athletic Therapists. By declaring, “We are all athletes”, the Canadian Athletic Therapists Association hopes to educate Canadians who have sustained an injury to their muscles, bones, or joints that a Certified Athletic Therapist can help get them back to work and play.

The BATC staff.